Tag Archives: UFC 116

And probably take about as much. About 5 or 6 Minutes, which in MMA terms translates into one or two rounds. The likelihood of this going to the judges for a decision is almost nil.

The reason for this is the assymetric factors of strength and skill and all of the unknowns that will, without a doubt, impinge on the fight that is just over 3 hours away. Brock Lesnar’s recovery from his illness, the strategies and decisions that fighters end up making in the octagon, cognizant of Mike Tyson’s truism, “Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face.” Luke Thomas of Bloody Elbow had it right when he opined:

The number of unknowns swirling in this bout is dizzying. Is Lesnar going to have ring rust? Is Carwin going to fold in the later rounds? Will Lesnar be able to take Carwin down enough? How will Lesnar respond when hit by Carwin? I’m not sure how to cook with these ingredients. I certainly believe Carwin is more than capable of stopping the fight at any time. If you’re picking him, you’ve got plenty of good reasons to do so. I’m going to lean ever so slightly to Lesnar, though. I just think he’s got the sort of gameplan to wear down Carwin. Over time he’ll compromise Carwin’s power, physically tire him and impose his game. Unless he gets KO’d. We’ll see what happens. Lesnar, TKO. Luke Thomas, Bloody Elbow) Continue reading →

Brock Lesnar may have nothing personal against Shane Carwin but that's not the way it's gonna look come Saturday night's UFC 116.

UFC 116 is close enough for people to channel Brock Lesnar’s process. If they do it right, the will come to the realization that come fight time, Brock Lesnar will try to make an example of Shane Carwin – not because he hates the man – but because figuratively he represents detractors and haters who, unlike Stuart Smalley, think he is not good enough, smart enough or doggone likable.

The strongest felt impulses of mice and men are put out there to be thwarted – but if Lesnar gets his way come Saturday night, he will put a memorable exclamation mark to the most anticipated fight in UFC since the emergence of American MMA from the backwaters of BJJ and vale tudo – and strut around the octagon like he has just pawned the UFC – which may not be that far away from the truth.

If there is a guy who has a key to Brock Lesnar’s psyche it has to be Randy Couture. Reason? His “I’m OK, You Are OK” approach to things; his matter-of-fact, aw-shucks approach to what he has and what other people have. Well, come to think of it, there isn’t a whole lot of people that Randy doesn’t have a key to. Nice guys tend to have that quality about them – so in a sense, this is a story about Randy Couture, the famed Captain America of mixed martial arts.

So what does this have to do with UFC 116? Well, as it turns out Randy Couture is one of the people Brock Lesnar has turned to for training help months/weeks ahead of his UFC fight with Colorado slugger Shane Carwin – which is quite impressive when you consider that this is the case of 290lb behemoth (Brock Lesnar) turning to a wiry 230lb grappler-turned-boxer for advice on how to demolish a proven slugger. At a the mental level, it is deep when you consider the chip Brock Lesnar tends to carry on his shoulder most of the time – the “up yours” attitude that has been his stock in trade since UFC 100.

“I’ve always had a lot of respect for Randy because he paved the highway for the wrestler in the UFC …. The good thing about Randy is that he doesn’t carry a chip on his shoulder.” (Brock Lesnar)

Well, no shit Shylock – reference the last part of that quote. That, among other things – seems to the key to the “friendship” or what passes for it between Brock and Randy. We only wish Lesnar could learn something from that quote concerning the antipathy his own chip-on-the-shoulder persona generates amongst the masses and chattering classes. But that is a story for another day.

There, we said it. No hemming or hawing. No ambiguity. Lesnar may be king of the hill of the UFC heavyweight division but he is far from being king of Mixed Martial Arts – and by that we are talking the Randy Coutures or Fedor Emelianenkos of the world. Why? Well because he still needs to prove that he is more than a ground-and-pound hog who beyond collegiate wrestling relies too much on his size, weight and strength to smother his opponents and then pummel them into a bloody stain. One good Wanderlei-Silva-style-slugfest with knees and kicks thrown in for good measure would do it – with doin’ it having to do with equalizing this slop-sided equation; i.e. winning by sheer preponderance of size.

Will Brock Lesnar stand up and deliver at UFC 116 or will he revert to the tried and true; the old ground and pound? We would love for him to surprise us, but we are not holding our breath. Reason? We doubt that Lesnar can take a punch.

Files this one under “mass and the conceit of mass” because it is gonna play a role come UFC 116. Put simply, Carwin is big, but Lesnar is bigger. No disrobing needed. The Lesnar-Carwin face-off in the octagon following UFC 111 proved that.

The long and the short of it? Lesnar has the mass, and conceit of mass on top of what his “mamaw” gave him – namely robust genes and strength to the ol’ farmhouse born. We will explicate. Mass does not necessarily equate with power. Frank Mir’s home gym experiment proves that, and so does Fedor Emelianenko’s freakshow fights. No?

Be that as it may, mass over a substrate of power, naturally born, is an aspect most animals, including those runnin’ around half naked in the octagon, have a problem dealing with. Anecdote: In the staged face-off between Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin at the end of UFC 111, Carwin was looking up and Lesnar down. (The camera was exaggerating the differences a bit, but there is really a 1 inch differetial in their heights – Lesnar being the slightly taller. See the comparative pic here.)

Shane Carwin is a 6’2″ cyborg who walks around at 275lbs to 280lbs and cuts weight to fight at 265lbs. Lesnar walks around at about 300lbs and gravitates back towards that weight after the 265lbs weigh-in for a fight. So off the top you have a 20lb walk-around weight differential coupled with a visible size differential which analysts have attributed to a mass distribution anomaly. Carwin is a solid chunk of a man to Lesnar’s Chicken Little lower body topped off by an Incredible Hulk upper body. (Cyberaxis)

Carwin vs Lesnar Size Matters - The photos are not scaled side-by-side comparisons, but you get the general idea, especially proportion-wise.

Brock De Beast: Just look at that neck and tell us if Carwin will be able to snap it with his celebrated "short right".

Forget the over-hyped froth of UFC fights of yesteryear because they are just mere whimpers before the big bang of Lesnar vs Carwin at UFC 116 and “Ordo Novus Seclorum.” MMA time-space is about to unfurl, like universes coming into being. Worlds collide. Fans watch with bated breath, not because Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin are pound-for-pound the best fighters in all of MMA, but because they are the biggest and baddest mofos to ever traverse the octagon at that scale of magnification. That mass. That weight. Word.

Their form, unadorned, dwarfs anything the imagination throws at it. Mere mortals – figurative Willy Lomans – shudder at the thought of encountering such behemoths beyond anything other than a friendly exchange. (God forbid that any one of them would have to defend their ladies’ honor against such behemoths at the local watering hole.) Such is the insidious cachet of heavyweights the world over. They make men squirm in their relative piddliness.

The UFC Fumble: The only match-up that would have rivaled the Lesnar-Carwin card would have been the promised Machida-Jackson matchup; the same that never materialized because of UFC fumbling. But we digress.

Beyond Sophistry – A Caveat: Brock’s illness and its possible after-effects are the big unknowns in this coming contest. Nobody knows how Brock will come out of his post surgery recovery. So put a big asterisk to what we are saying here, and next to it note that this article was originally written when Brock was high-flying, fresh off his pummeling of Frank Mir at UFC 100. So if everything that was fact then continues to hold going into UFC 116, then our predictions then hold the same weight. Just a statement of realistic reassessment versus the crafty means of creating an out for ourselves should Lesnar end up being road kill for Carwin. So with that out of the way, here is a recapitulation of what we wrote back on September 21, 2009.

Shane De Behemoth, trying to look scary: He is a rock solid cyborg from top to bottom, but will he be tough enough to rock "The Brock"? We doubt it, and we are rarely wrong.

The end of Shane Carwin’s winning streak is nigh: Shane Carwin will not necessarily be Brock Lesnar’s road kill come UFC 116, but lose to The Brock he will. Our prediction is that it will be by a stoppage in the first or second round. The end will come via Lesnar’s ground-and-pound, most probably near the edge of the octagon. (We know Frank Mir will be reliving this one from the pit of his stomach.) Lesnar will use his weight and massiveness to smother and snuff out Carwin when he is not making visible dents in his skull. But “tranquilo, tranquilo“; we are jumping ahead of ourselves here.

Ten reasons Lesnar will win UFC 116: The other tale o’ the tape:

1. Carwin is hungry, but Lesnar is hungrier …. with a hunger that transcends Abraham Maslow. Define and discuss.

2. Carwin can afford to lose this fight. Lesnar cannot. (His ego is now more pumped up than his form during WWE.) Bottomline is that Brock has way more to lose than Shane, especially after flippin’ off the fans at UFC 100. The battle is now up close and personal. Brock against the diehard aficionados of MMA who still think of him as a WWE beef-cake writ extra large for UFC.

3. Carwin, “The Engineer” will come in with a cerebral bent and Lesnar will go “gangsta” on his ass …. Well as much as a Minnesota boy who talks of ramming horse-shoes up opponents’ bung-holes can. Thinking that Carwin can come into the octagon and out-dirty-box Lesnar is just plain silly. Look for pummeling that may push the limits of UFC/MMA regulations in this fight as one tries to out-do the other. Keep a close eye on Lesnar especially when he looks like he may be losing control of the fight. This would be the cue to go primal – hard-wired to trip in extremis. Lesnar will only be cautious until he sees an opening. Then he will explode on Carwin’s ass like Machida on Evans. What Lesnar lacks in chops, he more than makes up for in adrenaline that is 99% proof.

4. Carwin has octagonal scruples to fret about. Lesnar doesn’t. A variation of point #3.

5. Carwin has to muster the froth and foam with which to put away his opponents: the quality otherwise knows as the killer instinct. Lesnar’s emanate out of the humors of “fear and loathing”. Variations of points #3 and 4.

6. Carwin is a gentleman. Lesnar is a thuggish meat-head. (See points # 3, 4 and 5). He doesn’t like people booing or making fun of him. Nobody does, but Lesnar takes it one step further. How did he get this way? Well, that is a story for another day children.

7. Carwin is strong, but Lesnar is stronger and more explosive and with a hair-trigger reflex to boot, especially in the opening rounds (See points #3 & #5, especially #3). Carwin is as sluggish as Mir. His saving grace is “the power and the glory” he packs in that short right hand. And all of God’s people said amen.

8. Lesnar hath the mass …. and conceit of mass on top of everything his mama gave him. We will explicate. Mass does not necessarily lead to power. Frank Mir’s home gym experiment (pre-Carwin) was proof of that. However mass on top of power, naturally bequeathed, is an attribute most animals, including those running half-naked in the octagon, have a problem dealing with. In the staged face-off between Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin at the end of UFC 111, Lesnar was looking down and Carwin was looking up, just like Frank Mir before him. But we really have to contextualize this. The height difference is about an inch – with Lesnar being the slightly taller. See pic below. But the walk-around weight is where Lesnar dominates at 300 plus pounds versus Carwin in the 280 plus pounds vicinity. So when these guys pile it on after the weigh-in, Lesnar is strutting around like an Atlas. Then there is the musculature beneath the visible mass. Noone can seriously argue that Carwin is stronger. Q.E.D.

Shane Carwin is a 6’2″ cyborg who walks around at 275lbs to 280lbs and cuts weight to fight at 265lbs. Lesnar walks around at about 300lbs and gravitates back towards that weight after the 265lbs weigh-in for a fight. So off the top you have a 20lb walk-around weight differential coupled with a visible size differential which analysts have attributed to a mass distribution anomaly. Carwin is a solid chunk of a man to Lesnar’s Chicken Little lower body topped off by an Incredible Hulk upper body. (Cyberaxis)

Lesnar vs Carwin: The UFC 116 weigh-in showing the marginal difference in height (about 1 inch), but there is the not-so-fictional illusion that Brock is bigger. The upper body musculature, neck and normal walk-around weight really make it less of an illusion.See note above. (Photo: Zuffa LLC)

9. Lesnar has the Mike Tyson thing going for him (before Buster Douglas busted his chops) and the UFC just has yet to put someone in front of him that will not be intimidated by his record and flashes of what he has done to every fighter he has fought – yes, including Mir in UFC 81. Fans and self-styled analysts have it right: With the exception of Gonzaga, (and Mir as of 03/27/10) Carwin has really fought a bunch of nobodies, which really makes him perhaps two and zero (2-0) in substantive as opposed to nominal stats. But also to be really fair, this kind of makes him like Lesnar before Mir in UFC 81 and Heath Herring in UFC 87.

10. Carwin seems to be very guarded about his chances of winning this thing. Lesnar is not. Victory is a fait accompli even as Carwin hems and haws. Caution versus arrogance? Perhaps, but highly unlikely. Carwin’s hedgy talk is reminiscent of Evans’ in the weeks leading to the disastrous near-decapitation of his noggin at UFC 98. We trust Carwin’s sixth sense here. We meticulously deconstructed Frank Mir’s body language prior to UFC 100 and were right on the money as usual. Wanna know where we did it? Well, you will have to beg children.

The Brock In Training For Carwin – UFC 106:

Check back on July 3rd, 2010 before midnight for a post-script of UFC 116 and our long-standing prediction. For the record, we called Mir vs Carwin for Carwin without as much as a blink. The undercard could be stronger, but noone is really paying to see the undercard.

With the addition of UFC stalwarts Antonio Nogueira, Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin to the undercard of the historic matchup between Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin, UFC 106 is now shaping up to be more stacked than a corseted Dolly Parton in her glory days. Can you say Dana goes bongo?! Yes folks, for a change the UFC is pulling out all the stops and putting all its nutsacks in the same bag. The Antonio Nogueira/Luis Cane fight, originally the headliner for UFC 105, would have single-handedly been a worthy undercard of UFC 106, were it not for the return to the octagon of Tito “The Huntington Bad Boy” Ortiz.

So barring an act of God or Nature, the Mandalay Bay will, come November 18, 2009, be seeing one of the biggest fight in UFC history shored up by two great undercards: Antonio “Minotauro” Nogueira who will be fighting Luis Cane and Tito Ortiz(16-6-1) who will be fighting Forrest Griffin (16-6-0). Griffin, who will be hunting for some kind of redemption after a disastrous, no make that humiliating showing against Anderson “The Spider” Silva in UFC 101. He suddenly replaced UFC hall of famer, Mark Coleman for reasons that are not quite clear.

UFC 106 couldn’t have come sooner, because the few match-ups following UFC 100 have been darn unremarkable. Filling gaps between major fights with lackluster cards does little for the sport and nothing for the fans. And talking about which, UFC 104 with Machida vs Rua will just be another celebrated back-room brawl between Brazilian goombahs. And if you want a good measure of just how unexciting this fight is, check the Google search results and rankings for the “Machida vs Rua” fight. It’s relatively underwhelming for a fight that is only 14 days away. This fight is falling through the cracks to some kind of mental dead zone for reasons elaborated in Why UFC 104 with Machida vs Jackson would have eclipsed UFC 100. (Tsk tsk! to Dan White for not sticking to the original Machida/Quinton Jackson commitment; the same he announced following UFC 98. The fight would have wowed the fans and made major bank for him and the Fertitta Brothers. And now in retrospect, diverting Quinton Jackson from the Machida-Jackson fight may have been a major boo-boo in light of what Jackson is now saying in the wake of his resignation from the UFC.)

The little Machida/Rua sideshow will only be notable if Machida cements his new-fangled fame as the New Karate Kid writ large. If he loses, oh well, so much for piss toddies, cat-paw strikes and the most nimble Ginger Rogers routine ever since that famous redhead, “pas de deuxed” backwards into history with Fred Astaire in tow. But we digress as usual.

Shane Carwin - A long, long shot at upsetting Brock Lesnar and winning the UFC Heavyweight belt in Las Vegas at UFC 106. What then would Lesnar do? Get a job?

Shane Carwin (11-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) is a hulking cyborg who demolishes opponents with techno-tronic precision. In UFC 106 (now rescheduled as UFC 116) he is slated to face Brock Lesnar (4-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) another certifiable cyborg who overwhelms his opponents with size, speed and ground and pound strength that make his opponents feel like sub-compacts in the jaws of a metal compactor. Which brings us to the significance of this fight – a pivotal sequel in the Brock Lesnar story. Note we are not saying anything about Shane Carwin at this point – because he is not gonna win this fight. Lesnar will. And not necessarily in spectacular fashion – but win The Brock will. (We will break down the rationale as the match approaches.) Those looking for an exciting fight will most probably be disappointed. Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin fights are thrilling in the same way that monster truck derbies are. Even the official Lesnar/Carwin promo video fails to rise up the pyrotechnic standard of UFC promo videos because there is little to work with for starters. You cannot manufacture technical brilliance like a video game programmer. Lesnar dusting off Mir on the ground looks like a carpenter trying to batten down a hatch. Brock Lesnar’s mystique has more to do with his freakish chops and Shane Carwin’s record, with the exception of Gabriel Gonzaga, has been built on fighters who have been less than stellar in heavyweight pugilism. His ground game has sometimes been as exciting as a psych orderly trying to strap down an unruly patient.

Brock "The Brock" Lesnar is a "fucker" who is used to getting his way. Anyone betting against this guy has either too much money on their hands or just clueless about Lesnar's "touchiness" about being belittled or made fun of. Yes, there is a big psyche angle to the Lesnar's drive to be "respected" - positively or negatively.

But with Brock Lesnar versus Shawn Carwin, UFC may be taking a practical step towards sensible match-ups in a situation that is crying for as a first step in the right direction by an organization that needs more rationality in the heavyweight division. Beyond this, it is the next biggest fight in a line-up of cards that have lacked real heft – the Lesnar-Mir showdown excepted with lots of reservations.

Shane Carwin has the sangfroid of a Zen Master. On a personal level he is gonna be a winner going in and out of this fight, but that precludes the unified belt that he and Brock Lesnar are gonna be fighting for. Good guys don’t always finish first and this, unfortunately, is gonna apply to Shane in this case …. unless he gets lucky with that short right hand (as he did in the case of Gonzaga and Wellisch.) He may well get lucky because Lesnar may try to go toe to toe with Carwin in a winner-takes-it-all bang-fest – at least in the opening encounter. (We would be seriously surprised if Lesnar tried to shoot without exchanging some blows first. Reason? Every ground and pound hog longs to grow some stand-up hairs on their balls. )

So the first round will probably see two hulking heavyweights not renowned for boxing chops trying to go toe to toe like prize fighters of the World Boxing Association. Lesnar is not known for his knockout power probably because of lack of technique and precision, but he has been known to knock goombahs down like bowling pins. Such is the raw power of the former South Dakota farm boy.

“He’s a baby. Don’t kick him because he’ll get hurt. He’s a hell of a wrestler man, the guy can wrestle and he’s strong, but he can’t punch and he can’t get kicked. And he don’t know how to kick. He can only go straight forward.” (Loud-mouth, Tim Sylvia on ESPN Radio)

Anything can happen in a stand-up lollapalooza, including the knockout of Carwin by a lucky shot from Lesnar. And if anyone could test Lesnar’s chin at this point, it would have to be Carwin. The question is can Carwin overcome the 3-inch reach deficit and Lesnar’s own elusive antsyness to land the big one that will fell Brock the Giant (which would make Shane the Giant Killer)? It is possible but highly unlikely. Lesnar, who has never been really, really rocked on tape, is gonna be extra antsy and careful going into this one. (Watch Lesnar’s antsy footwork.) As a matter of fact the caution may be such that the two pachyderms will be roundly booed in the first round before finally deciding to lock trunks under crowd duress.

Both are strong, but Lesnar has the edge in the raw strength/power department. Even the size and muscularity differential is visually persuasive. Some fans/analysts even argue that Lesnar may be stronger in the upper body arena than Carwin. So the strength/power advantage, especially on the ground, goes to Lesnar …. hence our prediction and the trending odds.

The Odds, The Odds, The Odds!: The Bookers, the fans & the collective ear pressed flush against the ground

The odds are trending towards our prediction at about 68 to 32% for Lesnar. Love him or hate him, these are the numbers which may change with time, but we doubt that they will fluctuate by much. The moneyline odds are as follows:

Brock Lesnar -215 (This means that for every $215 you bet, you stand to win $1oo if Brock Lesnar wins. This makes Brock Lesnar the favorite. You are betting or risking more than you stand to win.)

Shane Carwin +175 (This means for every $100 you bet, you stand to win $175 if Carwin wins. This makes Carwin the underdog. You are betting or risking less than you stand to win. The catch is the likeliness of your guy winning though.)

Beyond the booking halls, no substantive cross section of fans is giving this fight to Carwin overall. Trust the unbiased collective wisdom here and if you are gonna bet, don’t bet the family farm or wedding ring against Lesnar.

The Factors: Motivation

Brock Lesnar has way more to lose in this fight than Shane Carwin because of his higher profile, title and his decision to play the heel in an organization that has never celebrated such. If Shane loses, he falls back on his mining job and engineering degree. The same cannot be said of Lesnar. If Lesnar loses his heavyweight belt in UFC 106, he would have lost something even more precious than money; his sheen of invincibility and mantle of manifest destiny in the UFC. We at Cyberaxis seriously doubt that Lesnar would be content with being just another lumbering hack fighting in the heavyweight division after what he did at UFC 100: namely flipping everybody off. Psychologically this created a different dynamic between him and MMA fandom. This dynamic is why the home crowd effect, is for better or worse a big factor in the outcome of the games. The halting steps Lesnar took in his first fights were cemented in UFC 100. The newest boy on the MMA block had shown signs of wanting to court MMA. However with UFC 100, he slammed the door to that and became an unabashed heel with foam dripping out of his mouth. That was a momentous turn that some dismissed as a predetermined plot line. It was not. With proper guidance, Brock Lesnar could have blazed a different path in MMA – and one which could have been easier for him, mentally, emotionally, and perhaps financially in the long run.

The other reason Brock Lesnar has more to lose has to do with how or when he left pro wrestling. In case you have forgotten, Lesnar left WWE pro wrestling at a time he was poised to be the next big thing in McMahon’s stable. Did he get a pay cut? You bet. And for a pipe dream that was far from guaranteed. So when Lesnar takes to the octagon on November 11, (now July 3rd, 2010) he will be fighting for more than his reputation. Not so the behemoth from Boulder.

The Chin Factor

We know a little about the chin of Carwin because he got tested by someone who knows a little about knocking hombres out. (See the Carwin vs Gonzaga here.)

Not so much the Monster from Minnesota. Noone inside or outside the UFC has ever tested the chin of Brock Lesnar (at least as far as we know.) Noone with the right critical mass that is, because it takes a substantive amount of critical mass to breach Lesnar’s size, frenzied defence and 81″ reach – which is one of the things that stumped Randy Couture when they met in UFC 91. If anyone can do it this time, it would have to be Shane Carwin because he has the critical mass (262lbs to Brock Lesnar’s regulation 265lbs) even though Carwin’s reach, at 78″, falls 3 inches short of Lesnar’s. The reach advantage is not insurmountable for a guy who has the strength, critical mass and knockout chops of Shane Carwin. What this says is that when all other things are held fairly constant, size does indeed matter, and Shane does indeed have it. The question is; will he be able to penetrate Lesnar’s offensive and evasive defense? (Watch Lesnar’s antsy foot work and tell us if he is gonna be an easy target to hit – his size notwithstanding.)